- "I hate cul-de-sacs. There's only one way out, and the people are kind of weird."
- ―Vic on Mayfield Place
Mayfield Place is where the entire film takes place. It is a cul-de-sac with seven homes located in the town of Hinkley Hills.
The Set[]
Filmed entirely at Universal Studios, The 'Burbs presented technical and logistical problems for Dante and the crew. "I can't think of many pictures since Lifeboat that all take place in the same area," Dante said as production got under way. "There was a lot of temptation to broaden it and go outside the neighborhood, but it seemed to violate the spirit of the piece. It's almost the kind of thing that could be a stage play except that you could never do on-stage what we've done in this movie." Dante used the Colonial Street set on the back lot for the Mayfield Place cul-de-sac. The set had once been used in Dragnet (1987) also starring Tom Hanks. Coincidentally, the structure used as the Petersen home in The 'Burbs was used as the home of the virgin Connie Swail in Dragnet. At the time The 'Burbs began production the Colonial Street set was being used as the location for the Still the Beaver television series – the 1980s follow-up to Leave It to Beaver, so the entire area 'reeked' of normalcy. Dante said, "I asked production designer James Spencer, a veteran of Poltergeist and Gremlins if he thought he could turn that street into the neighborhood we needed in that period of time. Spencer rose to the challenge, and within a few days they began work on sketching out the proposed designs for the sets. Spencer observed, "We had to be on the spot. Due to the lack of time, it would have been ludicrous to do our drawing elsewhere."
The sacred Beaver household had to be carted away to make room for the dilapidated Klopek home. By the time Spencer was through, the entire street had been reconfigured.
The Klopeks' house was not completely destroyed, and remained almost intact as it appeared in The 'Burbs for a number of years, albeit without the tower. The whole building can be clearly seen in a season-two episode of Quantum Leap. The house no longer exists in an easily recognizable form (the Van de Kamp house in Desperate Housewives) but the right façade does still have some features of the original style. The original Klopek garage sits alongside the house, in much the same style as in The 'Burbs.
The other houses (many of which are just façades) have been used in countless television shows, movies and music videos through the years. Perhaps the most notable is The Munsters house, which is home to the Butler family in The 'Burbs. Due to its recognizability, the house's facade is never completely shown in the film. Two new houses, which were built specifically for the movie, were Walter Seznick's (which is still there to this day, see Desperate Housewives) and the Klopeks'.
The residents of Mayfield Place:[]
- 667: Walter Seznick
- 668: Unspecified
- 669: The Klopeks
- 670: The Rumsfields
- 671: The Petersons
- 672: Ricky Butler
- 673: The Weingartners